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Tilda Swinton caught up in race row over emails about her white-washed role in Doctor Strange

TILDA Swinton has landed herself in hot water after releasing her correspondence with Asian actress Margaret Cho.

By Hanna Flint

Thursday, December 22, 2016

Tilda Swinton was cast as The Ancient One in Doctor Strange despite the character being Asian in the Marvel Comics [Disney]

The Scottish actress had good intentions when she approached Cho for advice on how to respond to the diversity debate surrounding her casting as The Ancient One in Doctor Strange.

The original character from the Marvel Comics was a Tibetan man but in the movie version, Disney and director Scott Derrickson chose to change the characterisation to an androgynous woman of Celtic descent.

Many people in and out of the Asian community slammed the decision to change the ethnicity of the character as there is such little representation for Asian actors and actresses in Hollywood already.

The film industry has a long history of white-washing Asian characters - from Mickey Rooney as Mr. Yunioshi in Breakfast at Tiffany's to the recent casting of Scarlett Johansson as Japanese hero Major in Ghost in the Shell - and Tilda wanted to understand from Margaret how best to acknowledge the situation.

The Ancient One is Tibetan but in the film character is of Celtic descent [Marvel Comics]

She emailed Cho for a "private conversation" about the subject, but Cho discussed the email in rather critical terms on the Tigerbelly podcast.

"She said she didn’t understand why people were so mad about Doctor Strange and she wanted to talk about it, and wanted to get my take on why all the Asian people were mad,” Margaret said.

In response, Tilda's reps released the email exchange (via Jezebel) to make her attempt to understand the backlash seem earnest.

Margaret Cho called out Tilda for the way she approached the topic of diversity in a series of emails [WENN]

"I would really love to hear your thoughts and have a - private - conversation about it,' Tilda writes. "Are you up for this? Can we e-mail?"

Margaret agrees and explains the issue for Asian people: "Our stories are told by white actors over and over again and we feel at a loss to know how to cope with it. Protest seems to be the only solution- we just want more representative images of ourselves in film. TV is getting better in terms of diversity but film is lagging behind."

Swinton's response was to compare the representation of a "Scottish woman of 55" to that of Asian people, as well as suggest the change of gender of The Ancient One was enough to qualify as being diverse.

Tilda has been criticised for her white feminist approach to defending her casting[WENN]

This has led to many accusing the actress of being a white feminist - a person who champions a brand of feminism that focuses on the ideals and struggles of primarily white women.

Jessica Prois of The Huffington Post pointed out that by 'viewing representation on solely the white women axis, [Swinton] didn’t recognise that for Cho and the Asian community, representation isn’t just about gender — but also race."

In The Hollywood Reporter's Rebecca Sun's open letter to Tilda, she suggested that "perhaps this will become a pivotal opportunity for you to become an even more informed ally of the diversity you champion."